An Open Letter to NASA Re: Alleged Consensus on Climate Change

March 27, 2019

ATTN:     Jim Bridenstine

Administrator

NASA

c/o Public Communications and Inquiries Management Office
NASA Headquarters
Suite 5K39
Washington, DC 20546-0001
(202) 358-0001 (Office)
(202) 358-3469 (Fax)
public-inquiries@hq.nasa.gov

Dear Mr. Bridenstine,

RE: Request to correct the NASA website regarding the alleged consensus on climate change

 

Science is not a democracy, science is about evidence.

Dr. Nir Shaviv, Chair, Racah Institute of Physics, Hebrew University

 

We are pleased to hear of NASA’s ambitious new plans for space exploration, and we believe these plans confirm our request for NASA to update their website on climate change, particularly the section which claims there is a consensus. Claims of consensus are detrimental to open public debate.

“Since 95 percent of the people are imitators and only 5 percent initiators, people are persuaded more by the actions of others than by any proof we can offer.” 

― Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

As you know, President Trump is developing a presidential review on climate change and many scientists and policy experts have recently publicly made it known to him that they hold strongly dissenting views on climate change from the alleged mainstream ‘consensus’.[1]  Though one can say there is agreement that climate change is real, as is evident over the ~4.5 billion years of earth’s existence, and clearly humans have some greater and lesser impacts on the earth, it is inaccurate to extrapolate these fundamental concepts into a claim that almost all scientists share a groupthink view of causes of climate change. We demonstrate the flaws in the claimed 97% consensus papers in this study.[2]

We believe that the underlying reason for mass public alarm over climate change is due to the ClimateWorks billionaires and other commercial/investment interests in carbon trading, spending hundreds of millions of dollars over the past decade, to fund environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) world-wide to push climate change hysteria in order to drive their global cap and trade plans and vested interests in renewables. The wind/solar renewables business case relies on the claim that fossil fuel use and power generation carbon dioxide emissions will cause global warming.[3]  NASA’s credibility is exploited by promoting a non-existent ‘97% consensus’ that misrepresents what scientists do agree upon.

NASA holds a special place in the hearts of millions of people around the world. It was through the brilliant concepts and precision work of thousands of NASA employees and sub-contractors that so many exceptional space missions were successfully completed.  Indeed, all of these were only possible to bring into fruition using the energy from hydrocarbons and the many useful by-products.

In the process of NASA’s space exploration, many long-held beliefs about earth, the moon, sun, and other extraterrestrial bodies were enlightened through discovery – only possible because scientists were willing to venture beyond initial perceptions and understandings.

We believe this is the case with climate change science. Much excellent work has been done by thousands of scientists and this has enhanced our understanding of the climate. This work should have expanded our ability to discuss new findings. Instead, vested interests have made efforts to limit the public debate to name-calling of ‘denier’ to anyone with dissenting views or evidence, while demanding compliance to a ‘party line’ regarding human influence.

The claim of ‘consensus’ is a powerful social proof – a psychological tactic that has been employed to shut down public debate and cost-benefit policy analysis.  NASA’s role in posting only the ‘97%’ consensus papers, without also posting dissenting papers or evidence, means that millions of people have been misled and meaningful questions on climate change or policy have been silenced.

We request that you update the NASA Climate Change website to include the fact that there is no singular consensus on human influence on climate change.  If your site posts ‘consensus’ studies, it would be in keeping with the integrity of the scientific method, as outlined by Richard Feynman, to also post rebuttal studies to avoid supporting Cargo Cult Science.

“It’s a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty—a kind of leaning over backwards.  For example, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid—not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you’ve eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked—to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated….Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them.  You must do the best you can—if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong—to explain it. …In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.”[4]

We look forward to seeing such updates on the NASA Climate Change website.

Sincerely,

Michelle Stirling

Communications Manager

Cc:

President Donald Trump

Vice President Mike Pence

Dr. William Happer

[1] https://www.heartland.org/publications-resources/publications/joint-letter-to-president-trump-in-support-of-proposed-presidents-commission-on-climate-security

[2] https://friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/97_Consensus_Myth.pdf

[3] ClimateWorks Foundation – WikiLeaks https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/fileid/57594/16165

Nisbet  https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wcc.524 Summary: https://web.northeastern.edu/matthewnisbet/2018/05/21/summary-of-strategic-philanthropy-in-the-post-cap-and-trade-years-reviewing-u-s-foundation-climate-and-energy-funding-at-wires-climate-change/

[4] http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm

1 Comment

  1. auditiescardsshowyoucare

    This sounds like a reasonable request.

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